Reading Critically

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Reading Critically

When you read to relax, you can grab a well-plotted novel, put your feet up, and lose yourself in the story as the words wash over you, and the tensions of the day dissolve. Such reading is one of life's pleasures. Because your goal is to enjoy, it is okay if your mind wanders or if you feel too lazy to look up the meaning of a word and evaluate it. College reading is different. It requires you to question, draw conclusions, make associations, develop opinions, and support those opinions.

In short, college reading requires critical reading, the process considered in this chapter. Critical reading skills are as important in the workplace and your personal life as they are in college classrooms. Reading done in the workplace, such as that pictured on the facing page, requires critical reading skills—think of important reports, budget analyses, contracts, and projections, for example.

Even your important personal reading, gym contracts, job applications, and leases, for example, require those same skills. Think about the importance of critical reading in your life and about opportunities for critical reading that you now have or are likely to encounter soon.

Critical Reading

Critical reading is not necessarily finding fault or "criticizing"; it is digging deep into a text to determine what the author says, how he or she says it, and what the quality, significance, and implications are. To do all that and become a critical reader, you must analyze and assess a text—whether that text is a newspaper article, a web page, a journal article, a textbook chapter, or any other important material. Analyzing a text involves determining what the author is saying and how he or she is saying it; assessing a text involves making judgments about the quality and significance of the text.

to Analyze A Text

• Identify the author's ideas and understand their meaning. • Determine how the author explains or proves ideas.

• Ascertain the author's likely purpose and audience.

to Assess A Text

• Evaluate the quality and reliability of the text.

• Draw conclusions about the significance of the ideas.

• Discover connections between the ideas and what you already know.

Critical reading is a skill you will draw on repeatedly in college as your instructors ask you to judge the significance of ideas, evaluate data, and consider theories. For example, your sociology instructor may ask you to read the latest census report and draw conclusions about the nature of the American family. Critical reading is also a skill you are likely to need on the job, as when a supervisor asks you to read a marketing analysis and evaluate a sales trend or compare the findings of two reports. Critical reading is equally important in your private life.

In an election year, for example, you will read campaign literature, newspaper editorials, and magazine articles to form judgments about candidates in order to vote wisely. Or you may need to research and read opinions about treatments for a medical condition in order to decide on the best course of action. You must also learn effective reading strategies to synthesize information, evaluate quality, and detect errors in logic.

The next sections will focus on distinguishing facts from opinions. People often assume that anything in print is a fact, but the words on a page or computer screen may represent only the writer's opinion.

Chapter 1: Reading Critically

For example, it is a fact that electricity can power automobiles, but it is an opinion that electrically powered cars will outnumber gasoline-powered cars in 10 years. As a critical reader, you must distinguish between facts and opinions, and when you identify opinions, determine whether they are well-founded and well-supported. A theory must be able to support itself with facts. Scientists consider opinions to have their place and importance.

For what benefit can the theory be applied? How does the theory affect subsequent research? How should the theory influence public policy? The answers to such questions are matters of opinion but are nonetheless important because they can guide the course of future research and the application of the theory.

Much of the reading you encounter in college will include both facts and opinions. McHugh and Susan McHugh state that customer-driven organizations include Nordstrom department stores (they have a very generous return policy, for example) and Disney amusement parks (the parks are kept clean and appeal to all ages). Moto Photo does its best to please customers with fast, friendly service.

Such companies can successfully compete against Internet firms if they continue to offer better and friendlier service. Successful organizations must now listen more closely to customers to determine their wants and needs, then adjust the firm's products, policies, and practices to meet those demands.

A fact mentioned in this paragraph is that traditional companies now have to compete with Internet companies for customers. The claim that Nordstrom, Disney, and Moto Photo are customer-driven organizations is the author's opinion, but it is based on facts, which can be checked—for example, that Nordstrom has a generous return policy or that Disney parks are kept clean. The claim that traditional companies can compete through better, friendlier service is also an opinion. Is the opinion backed up sufficiently?

Critical readers must do more than distinguish between facts and opinions. They must also evaluate the quality of the opinions they identify. Opinions are more valuable than others.

Valuable opinions—ones to take seriously—are offered by knowledgeable people and are backed up by solid support. Less valuable opinions—ones to be wary of—are unsupported beliefs or are offered by people with little relevant knowledge or experience.

Making Inferences

Critical readers make inferences.

Caution:

Grounds to increase safety will hold the door open for a stranger entering their residence hall. Despite frequent warnings, students—and even faculty, administrators, and other campus personnel—act less judiciously than they would elsewhere. The same students who sponsor night walks to check the lighting are not as careful on campus as they are in other places, even though that point is not specifically made.

Making inferences is an important part of critical reading. However, your inferences must be supported by evidence. Thus, you cannot infer from the above paragraph that the author believes victims of campus crime get what they deserve because they are not sufficiently careful. As a reader, you might feel that way, but you cannot ascribe that idea to the author based on the evidence in the paragraph.

Synthesis is the process of connecting new information to what you already know. Thus, synthesis involves fitting new information into the larger scheme of your knowledge. When you read or hear a lecture, you can synthesize the information by noting how it supports, refutes, clarifies, illustrates, or calls into question other ideas, observations, or experiences. Suppose that you are reading an article that mentions the shortage of male teachers in elementary schools because they do not get enough respect for doing so. In college classes, you will synthesize by relating new ideas to information you have already learned.

Your history teacher might ask you to compare some aspect of the Bill of Rights (which you just read about) with some aspect of the Magna Carta (which you studied last term). Even though in your college classes you will usually synthesize by relating new classroom learning to earlier classroom learning, do not hesitate to synthesize ideas in a more personal way as well. For example, if your education instructor lectures on bilingual education and you are an international student, you can relate your instructor's points to your own school experience using English as a second language. Evaluating Quality

As you have learned, not everything in print or on the Internet is a fact, and not all opinions are well supported. Chapter 1 Reading Critically

and questionable truth makes its way into print and onto the Internet. For this reason, critical readers evaluate the quality of their reading material. As a student, you may feel uncomfortable judging what you read. Perhaps you think that you do not know enough or are not high enough in the academic "pecking order" to make such judgments.

In fact, as a student, you should practice critical reading at every opportunity. You are entitled to your opinion, as long as you back it up with evidence. Answering the following questions about reading material can help you form a reasonable judgment about its quality. • Are the "facts" really facts?

A point is not a fact just because a writer calls it one. The statement could be an opinion dressed up as a fact. Consider this example: "The fact that science is poorly taught in elementary school helps explain our nation's lack of scientific literacy." Is it a fact that science is poorly taught in elementary school? Is it a fact that we lack scientific literacy?

No, these are opinions, and calling them facts does not make them so. • Are the opinions adequately supported? Opinions backed up by sound reasoning and solid evidence are valuable; opinions offered without any support may not be. The author is stating an opinion that is not worth much. • Is the material current? If you are reading a biography of Abraham Lincoln, the fact that it was written 20 years ago may not be a problem (unless historians have recently made important new discoveries about Lincoln's life). Information from 2010. Are the source and author trustworthy?

Consider the author's credentials and possible biases. If you are looking for a balanced view of the issues surrounding handgun control, for instance, the National Rifle Association's website or an essay written by the mother of a student killed in a school shooting may not be an unbiased source. • Is the reasoning logical? A critical reader discounts material that contains faulty logic.

The next section will help you recognize errors in logic when you read and avoid them when you write. Detecting Errors in Logic

You need to know these fallacies to be able to identify them.

Be on the lookout for errors in logic, particular forms of faulty reasoning that can lead a person to a false conclusion. Unethical writers use errors in logic intentionally to mislead or manipulate a reader. However, many writers do not intend to deceive; they use faulty reasoning without meaning to. Critical reading includes errors in logic. As a writer, you should avoid such errors in your own work. Here are some of the most common errors in logic.

1. Overgeneralizing: Very little is true all of the time, so be careful of sweeping statements. The reason teenagers quit school is to avoid the homework. Example

2. Oversimplifying: Most issues worth arguing are complex, so be wary of "quick fix" explanations or solutions. Example: We would have no daycare problem in this country. The issue is not that simple. (They need to feed their children.) "Begging the question" is basing an argument or conclusion on the truth of a point that has not been proved.

Example: Not deserving spousal rights, who live together are "immature"?

4. Name calling. Also called an ad hominem ("to the man") attack or mudslinging, this fallacy involves attacking the people you don't agree with instead of criticizing their ideas or sticking with issues.

Example: Care about education.

5. Either-or reasoning. With complex issues, more than two alternatives usually exist.

Example: Is there a crisis on our hands?

6. Assuming an earlier event caused a later event. This fallacy is also called post hoc, ergo propter hoc, which means "after this, therefore because of this." The fact that one event occurred before another does not mean that the first event caused the second.

Example: The new mayor is really effective. He took office last month, and the crime rate is already down. Attacking or defending an issue on the basis of what was believed or done in the past. This kind of fallacy would have kept women from getting the vote and almost any other change from being implemented.

Chapter 1: Reading Critically

Example

If our grandparents managed without federally subsidized health care, so can we. (Our grandparents lived in a different world.)

8. Assuming that what is true for one person is true for everybody. My cousin and his girlfriend live together without being married, and they are just fine.

Example

That is not important for others.

9. Playing to general sentiments. Ava told the crowd, "This fallacy involves winning people over by calling upon commonly held feelings such as patriotism, fear of war, and religious fervor rather than discussing issues."

Example

People work hard to improve their circumstances, regardless of the speaker's political qualifications.

10. Falsely indicating that one point follows conclusively from another. Fewer minority students are attending our university this year. Apparently, minorities are losing interest in higher education. (The conclusion does not follow from the first statement.) Using the "as any fool can see" approach insults those who disagree. Not only is it a fallacy, but it can alienate readers.

It is apparent to everyone that deer hunting solves many wildlife problems. (No, it is not apparent to everyone, or your essay would not be necessary.)

Alluding to but not naming authorities, phrases such as "experts agree" or "research shows" suggest authority or evidence without naming that authority or evidence.

Studies show that most Americans distrust politicians. (What studies?)

Strategies for Critical Reading

As you have seen, to be a critical reader, you must read thoughtfully to distinguish facts from opinions, make inferences, synthesize information, evaluate quality, and be on the lookout for errors in logic. Strategies for Critical Reading

Readers, but critical readers often disagree with each other. Although you need not agree with others, you must support your views with sound reasoning and evidence. Sometimes you will be uncertain about the meaning of all or part of what you read, and that uncertainty is acceptable, too.

If you are puzzled, say so. Critical reading is often an investigative process, so ask questions of other readers and ask questions in class. Do some research, if necessary, to learn more about the text you are reading and to discover what other critical readers think. Eventually, things will become clearer to you. Sometimes you will change your mind about a text. "Yesterday you may have made one evaluation, but today you have another. Remember that reading is an ongoing process, and critical readers are willing to rethink their ideas in light of new evidence or insights. Gain experience and knowledge that affect how you synthesize information.

The strategies explained next can help you achieve the many goals of a critical reader.

Critical readers think about what they are reading and ask questions. They consider which ideas are facts and which are opinions. They ponder the significance of points and consider the implications behind the words.

They ask themselves how the author's ideas connect with what they already know. They look at whether the author is reliable and the source is current, and they evaluate the support offered for opinions. They look for errors in reasoning. In short, critical readers never automatically accept what they read; they reflect and question in order to draw their own conclusions."

As you read about the critical reading strategies that follow, remember that the most important strategy is maintaining a reflective and questioning attitude—all the other strategies are based on that one.

Preview the Material

Previewing the material before you read helps you to form preliminary impressions and to create a context for your reading. It is a way to initiate your reflective and questioning attitude. Consider the author and title and what they suggest about the piece.

Is the author a newspaper columnist, a humorist, or a political commentator? Do you know the author's politics or usual subject matter? Think about the title and what clues it might offer.

Some titles will tell you more than others. The publication information will suggest how current the information is and who the intended audience was. Read the headnote. Chapter 1: Reading Critically

Tell something about the author's background and publications and the content of the selection. This information can help you evaluate the reading. Read headings, charts, bold and italicized type, and lists for clues to the content and organization of the piece.

Do a First Reading

After previewing the reading, you will have a first impression and some expectations about the material—an impression and expectations that may or may not be borne out as you read more closely. To begin that closer examination, read the material through in one sitting, without pausing or laboring over anything. Just relax and get a sense of the author's purpose and main points.

If the piece appeals to you, enjoy it without considering exactly what techniques create the appeal. If you encounter unfamiliar words that you cannot understand from the context, circle them to look up later. If you do not understand a point, push on knowing that you will come back to it later. If the piece is too long to read in one sitting, break it into sections and do separate first readings. Not kidding.

→ Reread and Study

After your first reading, return to the piece, using your reflective and questioning attitude to look more closely and discover as much as you can. Shorter, simpler pieces may require only one rereading, but longer, more complex pieces will probably take two or more rereadings. Keep a pencil or pen in your hand so you can make notes in the margin and underline key passages.

You may be accustomed to using a yellow or pink marker, although this technique is more useful for highlighting important textbook passages to study. For most other materials, critical reading goes better when you can make notes about why certain elements are significant. If you do not own the reading or prefer not to mark the text for other reasons, write your annotations on a separate sheet or in a computer file. Or use removable sticky notes, attaching them to the appropriate places.

Look up words that you circled during your first reading and any other vocabulary you are unsure of. Use notes in the margins as a study aid. Identify the thesis (the central point). If it is stated, place brackets around it or underline it. If it is implied rather than stated, write it out in your own words in the margin or at the end of the reading.

Identify the purpose. Strategies for Critical Reading

As you read, clues will help you identify the purpose. Write out the purpose or combination of purposes in the margin or at the end of the reading. Then note how well you think the reading achieves the author's purpose. (For a discussion of a writer's purpose, see page 30.) Underline major points.

As you encounter important ideas that support the thesis, underline them for special consideration. You have a reason for doing so. Make notations as you reflect and question. Remember, as a critical reader, you need to distinguish fact from opinion, make inferences, synthesize information, and evaluate quality.

For a summary of questions to ask, see the "Questions for Critical Reading" box that follows. Of course, answering questions and going back to your answers is easier to do when you have a pencil or pen in your hand and can make notes in the margins. For example, if you like a passage or strongly agree, place an exclamation point next to it. Something like "not proven."

If you do not understand something, place a question mark in the margin. "Clever," "reminds me of psych lecture," and "who cares?" (For an example of a marked essay, see page 13.)

Reconsider any material you did not understand earlier. If necessary, list questions to ask other readers or your instructor. Consider researching in the library or on the Internet. • Reconsider the reading in light of your earlier impressions. If not, how has your thinking changed and why?

By following these procedures for rereading, you will create a marked essay.

*Practice Helpful Questions for Critical Reading*

• What is the source of the author's ideas: experience, observation, considered opinion, or research?

• Is the author expressing facts, opinion, or both?

• Is the author's detail adequate and convincing? Does the author support generalizations by showing and not just telling?

**Chapter 1: Reading Critically**

**Reading Selection

Background Born in New York City, philosopher and writer Mortimer Adler (1902 to 2001) taught at the University of Chicago, where he helped develop the Great Books program and directed the Institute for Philosophical Research. Although a high school dropout, Adler earned a Ph.D., was an editor for the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and wrote widely on philosophy and education. He spent much of his career popularizing the great ideas of Western civilization in works such as *Great Books of the Western World*, 54 vols. (1954, and rev. 1990). He is particularly noted for *How to Read a Book: The Art of Getting a Liberal Education* (1940). The following essay first appeared in the *Saturday Review* in 1940. mhhe dot com U.R.L

For more information on this author, go to More resources greater than Chapter 1 greater than Mortimer Adler.

Mortimer Adler

A person cannot truly own a book without writing in it, according to Mortimer Adler, for writing in a book is not an act of mutilation but of love. "Reading with A Purpose: Adler explains that it does not matter how many expensive volumes a person has on display. What matters is whether a person "consumes" the books with a pen or pencil in hand. Although the essay was written over 70 years ago, it still offers sound advice to readers. As you read, try to determine why this essay has remained popular for so long. How to Mark A Book

by Mortimer Adler

you know you have to read "between the lines" to get the most out of anything. I want to persuade you to do something equally important in the course of your reading. I want to persuade you to "write between the lines." Unless you do, you are not likely to do the most efficient kind of reading. I contend, quite bluntly, that marking up a book is not an act of mutilation but of love. Most of the world's great books are available today, in reprint editions, at less than a dollar.

You shouldn't mark up a book which isn't yours. Librarians (or your friends) who lend you books expect you to keep them clean, and you should. If you decide that I am right about the usefulness of marking books, you will have to buy them.

Most of the world's great books are available today, in reprint editions, at less than a dollar. There are two ways in which you can own a book. The first is the property right you establish by paying for it, just as you pay for clothes and furniture. But this act of purchase is only the prelude to possession. Full ownership comes only when you have made it a part of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part of it is by writing in it. An illustration may make the point clear. You buy a beefsteak and transfer it from the butcher's icebox to your own. Mortimer Adler, How to Mark a Book.

To do you any good, for paper, binding, and type—a respect for the physical thing—the craft of the printer rather than the genius of the author. They forget that it is possible for a man to acquire the idea, to possess the beauty, which a great book contains, without staking his claim by pasting his bookplate inside the cover. More than that, he, his father, or his wife, was rich enough to buy them.

There are three kinds of book owners: best-sellers—unread, untouched. (This deluded individual owns wood pulp and ink, not books.) The second has a great many books; a few of them read through, most of them dipped into, but all of them as clean and shiny as the day they were bought. This person would probably like to make books his own, but is restrained by a false respect for their physical appearance. The third has a few books, or many—every one of them dog-eared and dilapidated, shaken and loosened by continual use, marked and scribbled in from front to back. This man owns books.

Is it false respect, you may ask, to preserve intact and unblemished a beautifully printed book, an elegantly bound edition? Of course not. I'd no more scribble all over a first edition of Paradise Lost than I'd give my baby a set of crayons and an original Rembrandt! I wouldn't mark up a painting or a statue. The soul of a book, I speak, is inseparable from its body.

And the beauty of a rare edition or of a richly manufactured volume is like that of a painting or a statue. But the soul of a book can be separated from its body. A book is more like the score of a piece of music than it is like a painting. No great musician confuses a symphony with the printed sheets of music. Arturo Toscanini reveres Brahms, but Toscanini's score of the C-minor Symphony is so thoroughly marked up that no one but the maestro himself can read it. A great conductor makes notations on his musical scores, marking them up again and again each time he accomplishes something. Mark your books.

If your respect for magnificent binding or typography gets in the way, buy yourself a cheap edition and pay your respects to the author.

Why is marking up a book indispensable to reading? First, it keeps you awake. (And I don't mean merely conscious; I mean wide awake.) In the second place, reading, if it is active, is thinking, and thinking tends to express itself in words, spoken or written. The marked book is usually the thought-through book. Finally, writing helps you remember the thoughts you had or the thoughts the author expressed. Let me develop these three points: an understanding of what you have read. Like, say, "Gone With the Wind," it doesn't require the most active kind of reading.

But a great book, rich in ideas and beauty, a book that raises and tries to answer great fundamental questions, demands the most active reading of which you are capable. You don't absorb the ideas of John Dewey the way you absorb the crooning of Mr. Vallee. You know that you read actively.

The most famous active reader of great books I know is President Hutchins of the University of Chicago. He also has the hardest schedule of business activities of any man I know. He invariably reads with a pencil, and sometimes, when he picks up a book and pencil in the evening, he finds himself, instead of making intelligent notes, drawing what he calls "caviar factories" on the margins. When that happens, he puts the book down. He knows he's too tired to read, and he's just wasting time. But, you may ask, why is writing necessary?

Writing preserves your reactions better in your memory. To set down your reaction to important words and sentences you have read, and the questions they have raised in your mind, is to preserve those reactions and sharpen those questions. Even if you wrote on a scratch pad and threw the paper away when you had finished writing, your grasp of the book would be surer. But you don't have to throw the paper away.

The margins (top and bottom, as well as sides), the endpapers, and the very space between the lines are all available. They aren't sacred. And, best of all, your marks and notes become an integral part of the book and stay there forever.

The learner has to engage in agreement, disagreement, doubt, and inquiry. It's like questioning himself and questioning the teacher. Resuming an interrupted conversation with the advantage of being able to pick up where you left off.

And that is exactly what reading a book should be: a conversation between you and the author. He knows more about the subject than you do; naturally, you'll have the proper humility as you approach him. But don't let anybody tell you that a reader is supposed to be solely on the receiving end.

Understanding is a two-way operation; learning doesn't consist in being an empty receptacle. The learner has to question himself and question the teacher. He even has to argue with the teacher, once he understands what the teacher is saying. There are all kinds of devices for marking a book intelligently and fruitfully. Here's the way I do it:

1. Underlining: of major points, of important or forceful statements.

2. Vertical lines at the margin: to emphasize a statement already underlined.

John Dewey (1859 to 1952) was a philosopher and educator. 'Rudy Vallee (1901 to 1986) was a bandleader and singer. Mortimer Adler / How to Mark a Book

Star, asterisk, or other doodad at the margin: to be used sparingly, to emphasize the ten or twenty most important statements in the book. (You may want to fold the bottom corner of each page on which you use such marks. It won't hurt.)

3. Numbers in the margin: to indicate the sequence of points the author makes in developing a single argument.

4. Numbers of other pages in the margin: to indicate where else in the book the author made points relevant to the point marked; to tie up the ideas in a coherent manner.

5. Circling of key words or phrases.

6. Writing in the margin, or at the top or bottom of the page, for the sake of recording questions (and perhaps answers) which a passage raised in your mind; reducing a complicated discussion to a simple statement; recording the sequence of major points right through the book.

The front endpapers are, to me, the most important.' I reserve them for fancy bookplates. I reserve them for fancy thinking. After I have finished reading the book and making my personal index on the back endpapers, I turn to the front and try to outline the book, not page by page or point by point (I've already done that at the back), but as an integrated structure, with a basic unity and an order of parts. This outline is, to me, the measure of my understanding of the work.

The space between the lines and the endpapers don't give you room enough. All right, that the edges of the sheets won't protrude?

And back covers of the book. Or, you may say that this business of marking up books is going to slow up your reading. It probably will.

That's one of the reasons for doing it. There is no such thing as the right speed for intelligent reading. "Be read slowly and even laboriously. The sign of intelligence in reading is the ability to read different things differently according to their worth.

In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through you—how many you can make your own. A few friends are better than a thousand acquaintances. If this be your aim, as it should be, you will not be impatient if it takes more time and effort to read a great book than it does a newspaper.

Chapter 1: Reading Critically

You may have one final objection to marking books. You can't lend them to your friends because nobody else can read them without being distracted by your notes. Furthermore, you won't want to lend them because a marked copy is a kind of intellectual diary, and lending it is almost like giving your mind away. If your friend wishes to read your Plutarch's Lives, Shakespeare, or The Federalist Papers, tell him gently but firmly to buy a copy." You will lend him your car or your coat, but your books are as much a part of you as your head or your heart.

Assignment

Reread the essay with a pencil or pen in hand, and mark the selection using the strategies for annotation found on pages 11 to 15. If your instructor directs, form small groups in class and compare the ways you have marked the selection. What similarities and differences do you note? What accounts for the differences?